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This thread will be a how-to on the Tropico in-game map editor, including the various "cheats" and difficulty settings. It will be an on-going project as I have time to build it up. Requests for this compendium can be made with another thread.

For now. The official unsupported Tropico editor files can be downloaded from the Poptop website at http://tropico.godgames.com/scenarios/tedit103.exe or from my website at http://home.comcast.net/~b.fermanich/EDITOR.zip

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The Tropico map editor is NOT a separate application. It is activated from within the Tropico game itself.

For our first island, start a new Tropico random game, Select the size of map you want, but the rest of the settings will not be too important.

After you have selected your dicator and started the game, quickly press the <Pause/Break> key on your keyboard to pause the game.

Now comes the fun part. Hold down the <ctrl> key and type in e-d-i-t-o-r. There will be NO confirmation that you are in editor mode, but if your press the Z key the bulldozer tool should display in the bottom-middle window.

In addition to the bulldozer tool, there are several other map-editing functions available in Editor. Each enabled by pressing a hotkey. I will explain these tools in more detail in the following posts:

Z - Bulldozer.

P - Paint.

F - Fill (paint).

R - Raise/Lower terrain.

V - Vegetation.

<shift> M - Minerals

U - Units (people)

<shift> O - Add Buildings

I - Indicate cursor

To turn off Editor mode, hold down <ctrl> and type e-d-i-t-o-r again.

After you are done with your map, you should save it with Editor still running. While it is saving the map, there will be yellow "Regenerating Map" message across the very bottom of the screen.

If you do not allow the map to regenerate you will have pathing problems with your people and your ships. You may even have ships taking shortcuts across land areas. I recommend you make all your land changes before you regenerate/save the first time. I have had pathing problems with maps that I changed after the first save.

After saving, exit from Tropico and restart the game before trying to play your map.

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When Editor is activated, pressing the Z-key will activate the Bulldozer tool.

Before we do that though, we need to activate two more cheats.

RAPIDO - Hold down <ctrl> and type r-a-p-i-d-o to activate the Rapido cheat. There will be NO confirmation that this mode is activated, but all future construction and bulldozing will happen immediately, rather than having to wait for the laborers to build or demolish. To deactivate Rapido, just hold down <Ctrl> and type r-a-p-i-d-o again.

EXACTO - Hold down <ctrl> and type e-x-a-c-t-o. A box will pop up asking you to type in how much cash you want in your treasury. Bulldozing, like building, subtracts money from your treasury. Be sure to give yourself plenty of cash... $100,000 is not excessive. You can always activate Exacto again and set your treasury to a more reasonable amount before saving your game.

Now that we have activated Rapido and have plenty of cash, we can start bulldozing stuff. Press the Z-key to activate the Bulldozer tool.

The tool window at the bottom of the screen shows a picture of a bulldozer. This tool will allow you to remove ANY building, including your palace. You can also bulldoze vegetation.

Just to the right of the bulldozer picture is a set of buttons that will allow you to select from five different radii for the bulldozer tool. With the top, tiny, radius you can select individual buildings or plants to remove. With a larger radius, multiple buildings or plants can be removed with a single click.

NOTE: If you accidently select a building for demolition without Rapido activated, you will have to select the building and cancel demolition (by clicking the Red X) before you remove it. It is not necessary to cancel demolition on vegetation.

You can deactivate the Bulldozer tool in any of several ways: Activate a different editor tool with its hotkey; click any of the three regular in-game mode buttons (Building Mode, Edict Mode, or Info Mode); or by pressing the <Esc> key.

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When Editor is activated, holding down <shift> and pressing the O-key will activate the Building tool.

Before we talk about building, we should talk about Start-Empty. Start-Empty allows you start without any buildings or people. It is true you can remove all the buildings by bulldozing them, and remove all the people with the Removepeople cheat (to be explained later), but there is no way to remove the extra City Names, although they will probably disappear when you regenerate/save.

To Start-Empty: On the last mouse-click after selecting your Dictator, hold down <ctrl><shift> when you click the Start Regime or last OK button. The map will then be generated without any buildings or people. This clean slate is the best to start with if you have a special plan for your buildings or people.

This <Shift>-O Building tool is not recommended for regular building. For most building, use the in-game regular Building Mode. Be sure to activate the Rapido cheat as explained above in the Bulldozer section, and give yourself plenty of cash with Exacto.

When the building tool is activated, it will have a list of buildings on the right and a green-grass circle on the left. The circle was probably intended to show a picture of the selected building, but does not.

Scroll past the "**Special" lines (which dont appear to do anything), and the blank lines (which add parts of larger buildings) to get down to the good buildings. Each building may have several lines which select the different rotations. There will also be entries for buildings which are not in the game: coral reef, foundry, gaming area, plaza, various statues, etc. I would not recommend selecting any of these. The foundry appears to work OK, but some of them will immediately crash your game.

The Building Tool is best used for the buildings that cannot be built with the regular in-game Building Mode: the Palace, shacks, Archeological Sites and Colonial Forts. To move your Palace, use the Bulldozer tool to remove it and then the <shift>-O Building Tool to replace it. You will NOT be able to build two Palaces. Also liberally spread around the various types of shacks as starting housing.

The Archeological Site and Colonial Fort do not have to have Rapido activated to immediately build with the Building Tool. Note that they have an annoying property of leaving a path behind them as you drag their outline across the map. This will leave ugly flat patches with no vegetation. To avoid this problem, scroll the desired map location down to the bottom of the map window before selecting Archeological Site or Colonial Fort. Note the second entry for Colonial Fort will actually build a museum, rather than an unimproved fort.

You can deactivate the Building Tool the same way as you deactivate the Bulldozer Tool: Activate a different editor tool with its hotkey; click any of the three regular in-game mode buttons (Building Mode, Edict Mode, or Info Mode); or by pressing the <Esc> key.

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When Editor is activated, pressing the U-key will activate the Unit tool, which allows you to add more people to your map.

But before we do that, we probably want to get rid of the people we have now. Hold down <Ctrl> and type in r-e-m-o-v-e-p-e-o-p-l-e . This will remove ALL the people from the map. Of course you could start-empty, as described above in the Building Tool, but the removepeople cheat allows you re-remove everyone if you make a mistake.

When you activate the Unit Tool, the bottom tool window will show a list of unit-types on the right and a green-grass circle on the left, like the Build Tool. But with the Unit Tool, the circle will show a picture of the unit you have selected from the list. Click on the map and a unit of that type will appear at the cursor.

Note: the wrong picture is shown for the bottom four on the list, but they will produce the correct units. Also there is no picture shown at all for freighter, yacht, the gunboats, and the 2nd instance of fisherman. Choosing one of these and clicking the map will produce a unit in the closest available ocean location.

Do NOT attempt to add a dispatcher. That will crash your game.

For units that can be either male or female -- laborers (construction workers), farmers, tourists, children, and babies -- the unit added will be randomly male or female. To add a unit of a specific gender: Hold down the left-<shift> while clicking to add a Female or the right-<shift> to add a Male.

New workers will typically take up the nearest suitable job, although it is only in the mind of the worker what the definition of "near" and "suitable" are. If you don't want farmers becoming teamsters and construction workers becoming dockworkers, you will need to follow this procedure:
Click on all of the buildings and close off all of the worker slots.
Then for each building you wish to fill:
Press <Esc> to close the Unit Tool
Find the building you wish to add workers to.
Click on the building and open the number of slots you wish to fill.
Press U to open the Unit Tool and select the unit type
Click on the map, near the building, once for each unit you want to add
The first step, pressing <Esc>, is especially important. Otherwise, when you click on the building to open its slots you will accidently add a worker of the previously selected type... and that worker will have no open job slot so he will interfere with your future job filling. He/she will probably jump in and fill a slot when you least expect it. If you do this, you may have to use the removepeople cheat and start over.

Unlike the Building Tool, the Unit Tool remembers which unit type you have selected, so it is not necessary to scroll back down after closing the Tool and re-opening it.

Also, some workers do not like where they are assigned and will jump into another position when it opens -- even though the game is paused. Usually though, all but one or two of your workers will stay where they are assigned -- at least until the game is started.

Once you fill all worker slots you want, you can throw in a few children or babies, who will be assigned to a close single female. Also, random games throw in one or two highschool and college educateds of each gender, so I always throw in a banker or a professor and an engineer or journalist and maybe a priest, teacher and bureaucrat. They will take any convenient job.

Be sure to click on each building and make sure to re-open all of the worker slots before saving your map.

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When Editor is activated, pressing the R-key will activate the Raise/Lower Terrain tool.

This tool is actually three tools in one. In addition to the familiar radius selector, the tool window will be split into three large buttons: Raise/Lower Ground, Smooth out Area, and Lower Area to Sea Level.

When Raise/Lower Ground is selected, you choose any area on the map, click-and-hold, and move the mouse up or down. Moving the mouse up will pull up a mound of ground of the approprate radius, while moving the mouse down will produce an indent.

When Smooth out Area is selected, you choose an area on the map, click-and-hold, and jiggle the mouse around. Each jiggle will produce a little averaging effect, raising low areas and lowering high areas -- smoothing out the bumps and ridges. Beware smoothing too much near the shore, because you might raise the ocean above sea level.

Addendum: Junta Joe told me about this one....
If you choose the Smooth out Area Tool and hold down the <shift> when you click on the map, the elevation is locked in. Therefore, instead of smoothing out the area, it creates a plateau when you move around the mouse.

When Lower Area to Sea Level is selected, you choose an area on the map, click-and-hold, and jiggle the mouse around like the Smooth tool, but with this tool the area will be flattened down to sea level. This tool is most useful for ironing out the island before building it up, and for correcting the shoreline -- lowering the water back to sea level.

When using these terrain tools, you should use one or more of the Grid Displays. Pressing G, C, or <shift>P will activate each of the grid tools. Pressing the same key a second time will deactivate that grid.

The G-Grid is a small square gridiron pattern that is useful for creating and revealing slopes and bumps, as well as laying out buildings and roads.

The C-Grid has larger squares that are useful for measuring large distances and ocean expanses.

The <shift>-P grid is a smaller pattern, like the G-Grid, but it has square horizontal/vertical corners that are useful for discovering subtle slopes.

You can deactivate the Raise/Lower Tool the same way as you deactivate the other tools: Activate a different editor tool with its hotkey; click any of the three regular in-game mode buttons (Building Mode, Edict Mode, or Info Mode); or by pressing the <Esc> key.

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When Editor is activated, pressing the P-key will activate Paint Tool and pressing the F-key will activate the Fill Tool. Both are used to paint in the land, beaches, cliffs, and ocean.

Both tools have a palette of 11 colors to choose from. The tool window shows 18 color boxes, but clicking on any of the last 7 will actually select from the first seven colors. The first color is the blue ocean water. Second is the sandy beach. Third is lush green field. The Fourth through Tenth are successively more dirt and less greenery. The eleventh is rocky.

The Paint Tool has the now-familiar radius selector and will paint the selected color anywhere you click on the map.

Note that there is only one blue ocean color selection box. To change the color of water from the light-blue beach shallows to the deep-blue fishing water hold down the <Shift> key while Painting with the blue ocean color. To produce more shallow water, hold down the <Ctrl> key and paint with the ocean color near the shore. You can "pull" more shallows from the shore out to deeper water.

Once you are done deepening or shallowing, you can use the Smoothing Tool from the Raise/Lower Tool to smooth out the rough edges of water you just changed. I have noticed that the edges seem to soften when Saving the map anyway.

Note that when you are painting with <Shift> or <Ctrl> that the Paint Tool will not affect the land, only the ocean... so it is safe to Paint deep or shallow water near the shore without painting over that shore.

The Paint Tool also has two buttons between the color palette and the Radius Selector, labelled Solid and Mix. The Mix button will bring up a palette of mixed colors. The function of this tool is to mix or blend areas of different color together, but it is very clumsy to use, so I never use it.

The Fill Tool also has the palette of 11 colors, but its functions are totally different. Its two columns of buttons are labeled ALL/ADJ and MATC/ABOV/BELO.

The default is ADJ-MATC which will replace the color of the cell you click with the color you selected...It will also replace any other cell which matches in color the original color of that cell and is adjacent to it.... The area you will replace will be highlighted before you click it, so you can see what the effect will be.

ALL-MATC is similar, in that it replaces one color with another... Only this time, it replaces ALL cells of that color. So if you click on any rocky spot with the sandy beach color, it will replace all of your rocky-shore squares with beach. With ADJ-MATC you would have only replaced that one contiguous section.

The ABOV and BELO selections replace based on elevation rather than color. So if you select ADJ-ABOV you can replace the color of a mountain-top by selecting a spot on its slope. If you select ALL-ABOV it will re-color all the mountain tops. Be careful with ALL-BELO. If you click on a slope it will also re-color the shores and ocean. ADJ-BELO is useful for filling in depressions, such as coloring a volcano crater.

Warning: If you fill with ocean-blue, all of the cells colored will be forced to the same elevation as the clicked-cell.....So you will end up with weird flat blue spots all over your map. Even worse, if you use ADJ-BELO or ALL-BELO and click blue on a slope, it will force the entire sea up to that elevation...not good!!!

Advanced Technique!
If you want to build an island from scratch, follow this technique to save time.
Start your island using Start-Empty by pressing <Ctrl><Shift> when you start.Start Editor and invoke Rapido.Remove all the vegetation with the Bulldozer or Vegetation Tool.Open the Fill ToolSelect ALL-ABOV and select the ocean blue color from the palette Click any Ocean square!!!! Whoosh.....no land!!!Turn on the G-Grid and use the Raise/Lower Tool to create the shape of your islandGo back to the Fill Tool and choose ALL-ABOV again with the Rocky 11th colorClick any flat ocean square and the whole map will turn to rockSelect the First Green color and click a square two spaces above the water to restore the landSwitch to All-BELO with the ocean-blue colorClick the flat ocean to restore the waterSwitch to the Paint tool to add in any beaches and correct any shore problems.

Dont worry too much about the color of the land, once you Save your map, the elevations will tend to be recolored anyway.

Once the island is painted the way you like it, you should check it for error, such as spots of ocean embedded in the land, or an incomplete shoreline. The embedded ocean spots are a nuisance because you cannot build on them and an incomplete shoreline can cause ship pathing errors.

The easiest way to detect your errors is to use the in-game Info mode. Click on the Eye in lower left of the tool window and select the Mineral View. Your island should appear mostly red, with a few yellow and green spots where there are minerals. The ocean spots will show as bright blue, so any embedded ocean spots will stand out boldly. Once you have fixed the ocean spots, select the Info/Crops view. The map will show green or yellow close by the ocean, but the sand or rock shore should show as an unbroken red band.

Like the other tools, you can deactivate the Paint or Fill Tools by Activating a different editor tool with its hotkey, clicking any of the three regular in-game mode buttons (Building Mode, Edict Mode, or Info Mode), or by pressing the <Esc> key.

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When Editor is activated, pressing the V-key will activate the Vegetation tool, which is used to add or remove plants.

The Vegetation Tool has a palette of eleven types of trees, as well as the familiar radius selector. Between the tree palette and the radius selector are two vertical buttons. The upper button has a picture of a watering can with a tree, while the lower button is of a chainsaw.

The Chainsaw Tool can be used to remove trees like the bulldozer tool, but the chainsaw tool leaves the buildings behind and does not charge the treasury. With the smallest radius, the chainsaw will remove one tree with each mouseclick or jiggle with the mouse held down, while the larger radii will remove multiple trees.

With the Watering Can tool, you select which of the eleven vegetation types to add, then each mouseclick or jiggle will add one tree with the smallest radius and multiple trees with the larger radii. Note that the top row of selection buttons in the palette, as well as the first button in the second row are of full grown trees. The eighth selection will add piles of rocks and the ninth through eleventh will add decorative bushes or small trees of various types.

Note that you cannot add vegetation on blue water squares. You also cannot remove vegetation that has been painted blue under. If you accidently paint blue under vegetation, you will have to restore the land before removing. In fact, the bulldozer tool will charge the treasury if you attempt to remove trees that are in water, but will not remove them.

For fun..... Use the Vegetation Tool with the 3rd radius and jiggle the mouse around a little to create a small thicket of trees maybe 12x12 square. Paint blue water under them with the 4th radius. Use Exacto and give yourself 1000000 pesos. Use the Bulldozer Tool with the 4th radius....hold down the mouse button and jiggle over the thicket until the box comes up saying you don't have enough money... Demonstration enough....never forget to remove the trees before sculpting your island.

Super Secret!!!! I discovered these by accident as I was playing around. The 12th through 15th palette buttons, although blank, are useful. The 12th button adds rubble, the 13th unusual bushes, the 14th unusual full-sized trees, and the 15th square flower gardens.

You can deactivate the Vegetation tool much like the other editor tools by Activating a different editor tool with its hotkey, clicking any of the three regular in-game mode buttons (Building Mode, Edict Mode, or Info Mode), or by pressing the <Esc> key.

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When Editor is activated, holding down <Shift> and pressing the M-key will activate the Mineral tool.

When you activate the Mineral Tool with its hotkey, you will get an errorbox saying something about there being no messages to display...You can click the OK and ignore the message.

The Mineral Tool uses the same tool window as the Vegetation tool and Fill tool, but most of the buttons are blank and do nothing. The radius selector works fine and the first four palette buttons are used select between removing or adding minerals to your map.

The first palette button shows a red-X, and is used to remove minerals. The other three buttons, if you don't remember your highschool chemistry, add Iron, Bauxite, and Gold.

With this tool, it is difficult to see what you are doing, unless you Lock-In the proper Info-Mode tool first.Click the Info-Eye buttonSelect the Minerals Info button (top-row 2nd button) and click until the right-hand info window says Overall MineralsClick the lock symbol under the right-hand info window!!!!Now you can activate the <Shift>M - Mineral Tool and see your results as you are painting them

It is true that with the info mode locked in you cannot see the selection cursor outlined on the map while you are painting or erasing, but your effect will be clear. The greener the area, the richer the lode.

Note that you can add minerals under water, but they will not be accessable to your Tropicans, or show on the Info-Minerals map until that area has been painted with land-colors.

You can deactivate the Minerals Tool just exactly and furthermore -- I hear an echo -- the same as the other editor tools by Activating a different editor tool with its hotkey, clicking any of the three regular in-game mode buttons (Building Mode, Edict Mode, or Info Mode), or by pressing the <Esc> key.

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So...in summary the steps for making your Tropico map should be like this:Create your island with <Ctrl><Shift>, so it starts with no people or buildings.Remove all the trees with the Vegetation toolFlatten your island with Fill (Blue) or Lower-to-SealevelCreate your island shape with the Raise/Lower ToolPaint your landAdd Vegetation and MineralsAdd BuildingsAdd People

You can save the map after your basic island shape has been created and colored. If you save before the basic shape is done, you will probably have people and ship pathing errors and end up with an unplayable game. Always save with Editor still active so the map has a chance to regenerate and recover from the changes.

Final Adjustments
Before using your map in a scenario, you will want to adjust the difficulty levels. If you hold down the <Ctrl> key and type one of the following words, you will get a pop-up box in which you can enter the difficulty level Zero (sandbox/very easy) through Five (ridiculously hard)

<Ctrl>e-c-o-n-o-m-i-c-d-i-f-f-i-c-u-l-t-y Adjusts the economic difficulty level -- just as if it had been selected that way from the second random-map screen.

<Ctrl>p-o-l-i-t-i-c-a-l-d-i-f-f-i-c-u-l-t-y Adjusts the political difficulty level -- just as if it had been selected that way from the second random-map screen.

<Ctrl>r-a-t-e-d-d-i-f-f-i-c-u-l-t-y Adjusts the difficulty level that shows in the window as you are selecting the scenario from the list. This setting has no effect on the game, just the way it is displayed in the list.

Note that the scene that shows in the map window when you save will be the one that shows when the map starts up in the game. You can use that view to set the mood for the scenario storyline. Check out the starting view in the scenario I am currently working on: Return to Glory. The soldiers are marching triumphantly into the palace, leaving behind the bodies of the former soldiers and one banker. Panning back will reveal another banker watching, as well as a large group of children -- who presumably saw the bloody takeover.

Advanced Topic
If you have a good graphics program that can write a Greyscale-PCX file you can create your own map. Make the map with a Black ocean and successively whiter slopes.

Personally, I find that method difficult to see.....so I start with a white ocean and successively darker land, with black at the top, then use the negative image function before saving.....

You start Tropico in the normal manner. After pausing the map, hold down <Ctrl> and type in i-m-p-o-r-t-m-a-p. A box will pop up asking the name of the PCX map file you saved in the Tropico directory, and a vertical multiplier factor.....I have used multipliers from 100 to 500 with good results. The map will then be imported with green shorelines, so you will have to draw in rocks/sand or use the sequence delineated in the Paint/Fill post above.

Note that imported scenarios have their difficulty level reset to Sandbox, so you will have to set both the political and economic difficulties.

When I created my R-E-S-P-E-C-T island I did this:Draw a blue spiral on a white backgroundFill in spiral with blotches of various shades of grey, ending with black at topReplace blue spiral with whiteUse Paintshop tools to select and blend greys so it is a uniform rampUse advanced save tools to save as a greyscale PCXStart game and select appropriate dictator traitsStart map with <Ctrl><Shift>(Start empty) Import mapClean beer off monitor after seeing totally green map with spiral hole in the center.Reopen map in Paintshop and select Negative Image and resaveReimport mapFill entire map as rocksFill oceans as waterPaint slopes greenAdd buildings and peopleReset difficulty levelSave map

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In conclusion...
The Tropico Map Editor can be used to make a wide variety of map shapes and starting conditions, complete with buildings, people, and landscaping. It is quite easy to use, once you learn the proper use of its tools and is a vital mechanism for building Tropico games and scenarios.

If you feel there are any errors or omissions, please contact me so I can correct them...

Enjoy!!!! :)